Adult

In September 1969, a fumbling, cranky old church deacon known as Sportcoat shuffles into the courtyard of the Cause Houses housing project in south Brooklyn, pulls a .38 from his pocket, and shoots the project's drug dealer at point-blank range. James McBride brings to vivid life the people affected by the shooting: the victim, the African-American and Latinx residents who witnessed it, the white neighbors, the local cops assigned to investigate, the members of the Five Ends Baptist Church where Sportcoat was deacon, the neighborhood's Italian mobsters, and Sportcoat himself. As the story deepens, it becomes clear that the lives of the characters --- caught in the tumultuous swirl of 1960s New York --- overlap in unexpected ways.

Daisy Cooper’s life has been pretty uneventful --- until the moment it suddenly ends. Unfortunately, her death is --- literally --- an accident: Daisy wasn’t meant to die for another 50 years. One terrible, embarrassing clerical error is behind it, and Death himself is to blame. As Daisy battles against her new reality, she starts to realize that letting go isn’t just a challenge faced by those left behind. And while she learns how to survive this impossible time, friendship, hope and even love begin to come alive in the most unexpected ways.

Sicily, 1943. Eddie Harkins, former Philadelphia beat cop turned Military Police lieutenant, reluctantly finds himself first at the scene of a murder at the US Army’s 11th Field Hospital. There the nurses contend with heat, dirt, short-handed staffs, the threat of German counterattack, an ever-present flood of horribly wounded GIs, and the threat of assault by one of their own --- at least until someone shoots Dr. Myers Stephenson in the head. With help from nurse Kathleen Donnelly, once a childhood friend and now perhaps something more, it soon becomes clear to Harkins that the unit is rotten to its core. As the battle lines push forward, Harkins is running out of time to find one killer before he can strike again.

John Feinstein pulls back the curtain on college basketball's lesser-known Cinderella stories --- the smaller programs who no one expects to win, who have no chance of attracting the most coveted high school recruits. To tell this story, Feinstein follows a handful of players, coaches and schools who dream, not of winning the NCAA tournament, but of making it past their first or second round games. Every once in a while, one of these coaches or players is plucked from obscurity to lead a major team or to play professionally, cementing their status in these fiercely passionate fan bases as a legend. These are the gifted players who aren't handled with kid gloves --- they're hardworking, gritty teammates who practice and party with everyone else.

Katherine O’Dell is an Irish theater legend. Every moment of her life is a performance, with her daughter, Norah, standing in the wings. However, with age, alcohol and dimming stardom, Katherine’s grip on reality grows fitful. Fueled by a proud and long-simmering rage, she commits a bizarre crime. As Norah’s role gradually changes to Katherine’s protector, caregiver and, finally, legacy-keeper, she revisits her mother’s life of fiercely kept secrets. In turn, Norah confronts the secrets of her own sexual and emotional coming-of-age.

After an unspeakable crime shatters her life, Rachel Marin changes her identity and moves to a small town in Illinois, hoping to spare her children from further trauma…or worse. But crime follows her everywhere. When the former mayor winds up dead, Rachel can’t help but get involved. Where local detectives see suicide, she sees murder. But her investigative genius may be her undoing: the deeper she digs, the harder it is to keep her own secrets buried. Her persistence makes her the target of both the cops and a killer. Meanwhile, the terrifying truth about her past threatens to come to light, and Rachel learns the hard way that she can’t trust anyone.

DOUBLE FEATURE contains two classic Donald E. Westlake novellas, "A Travesty" and Ordo." In New York City, a movie critic has just murdered his girlfriend --- well, one of his girlfriends (not to be confused with his wife). Will the unlikely crime-solving partnership he forms with the investigating police detective keep him from the film noir ending he deserves? On the opposite coast, movie star Dawn Devayne --- the hottest It Girl in Hollywood --- gets a visit from a Navy sailor who says he knew her when she was just ordinary Estelle Anlic of San Diego. Now she's a big star who's put her past behind her. But secrets have a way of not staying buried.

He appears in the darkness like a ghost, made of shadows and fear --- the Midnight Man. He comes for the parents but leaves the children alive, tiny witnesses to unspeakable horror. The bedroom communities of Los Angeles are gripped with dread, and the attacks are escalating. Still reeling from her best friend’s close call in a bombing six months ago, FBI behavioral analyst Caitlin Hendrix has come to Los Angeles to assist in the Midnight Man investigation and do what she does best --- hunt a serial killer. Her work is what keeps her going, but something about this UNSUB --- unknown subject --- doesn’t sit right. She soon realizes that this case will test not only her skills but also her dedication, for within the heart of a killer lives a secret that mirrors Caitlin’s own past.

On a Good Friday in a picturesque village in Upstate New York, the spring weather is unusually warm and school is closed. It's an ideal day for tanning and partying in the park until Shawnee Padrushky, age 17, drives up in his dad's new pick-up and comes out shooting with one victim in mind --- Gunther Smith --- the only black student in Shawnee's class, the adopted son of white parents. THE CRIME OF BEING explores the effects of a racial incident --- how it divides a seemingly homogenous community over the course of a summer and exposes its dark secrets. Tarred by the media as “the most racist town in America,” the people of Liberty face tangled questions of whether racism or insanity was at the root of a white teenager's violent assault of his black classmate, and whether the community as a whole can be implicated.

Sadie Donovan struggles with the legacy of her grandmother, the famous essayist Laura Lyons, especially after she has wrangled her dream job as a curator at the New York Public Library. But the job quickly becomes a nightmare when rare manuscripts, notes and books for the exhibit Sadie has been running begin disappearing from the library's famous Berg Collection. Determined to save both the exhibit and her career, the typically risk-averse Sadie teams up with a private security expert to uncover the culprit. However, things unexpectedly become personal when the investigation leads Sadie to some unwelcome truths about her own family heritage --- truths that shed new light on the biggest tragedy in the library's history.